You may be lucky and have space between you and your neighbour’s house, but never forget that sound travels. It doesn’t matter whether you are renovating your small apartment or your mansion, whether it’s the whole house or just the guest bathroom, you want to ensure you’re respecting your neighbours. There are certain unspoken rules to being neighbourly during renovations. Too often do people forget about those around them, and neighbours can be too kind to say something.

Courtesy notes

Before you even begin to renovate, it’s a good idea to write a letter that lets your neighbours know about your upcoming renovation. This can prevent any noise complaints from your neighbors and avoid conflicts with them. How you address them in your letter depends on your relationship with them, whether it’s friendly or professional. Let them know how long you expect the project to take, your efforts to minimize disruption, garbage waste, etc. Include a note at the end indicating that you are open to speaking with them if they have any concerns and apologize for any inconvenience that may occur.

Curfew

There are different considerations to make regarding timing and renovating throughout the day. If you want to begin on your project early in the morning, make sure you keep the loud jobs for later. You don’t want to be that neighbour hammering away at seven in the morning. Generally, renovations make a lot of noise. Be considerate about starting too early or working too late as it may cause frustration from neighbours.

Clean-up

If you’re naturally inclined to be clean, this will not be a problem for you. Make sure the garbage you’re removing from your house is properly stored and taken away when needed. Everyone likes a tidy neighbourhood. In addition, if there are little kids running around and playing, as a parent you wouldn’t want rubbish and construction materials left out for them to get a hold of.

Parking

Sometimes parking can become an issue, particularly when you have a lot of workers coming to your house. Making it impossible for your neighbours to park near their house is a situation that you’re better off avoiding. This can be avoided by setting up a decent curfew. Even telling them to leave their number on their windshield allows neighbors to call them if they are blocked in.

Watch the language

It’s not uncommon for men to joke around and use language that can be offensive to others and not something children should hear. Before it becomes a problem, let your workers know that children are around and it’s important that they are mindful of their language.

Product picking is personally what I think is the best stage when renovating. Or at least the most exciting stage. By picking products, you are giving others sight to what you’ve been envisioning from the beginning. If you’re like me, you’d be the type of person who could spend hours in a store looking at different colours and textures. I love determining whether a certain tile would look good with the wall paint and wooden floor. Likewise, your decisions at this stage will affect the feel of each room. It’s an exciting challenge to stay within budget while achieving your dream home.

Here is what we’ve been envisioning for our McKenzie Lake project.

Bathroom

Before we took a sledgehammer to the bathroom, the photo to the left is what the tub looked like. It was old-fashioned with yellow tile surrounding the tub. The bathtub area had great potential being located near the windows, so we wanted to use that advantage.

Our vision, to the right, is for the bathroom to be something clean and modern. This photo from Houzz.com gives you an idea of what we are hoping to achieve; a free-standing bathtub, surrounded by windows and preferably dark grey tile.

This bathroom from Houzz.com has a bit more of a country look to it, but the classic colours and free-standing tub give you a glimpse of our hopes for our bathroom.

Kitchen

As you’ve seen from before, the kitchen had some room for improvement. To refresh your memory, I’ve posted a picture to the left. Between the kitchen’s vintage cupboards and modern tile back-splash, the room needed some consistency.

Our inspiration for the kitchen comes from the photo on the right. Clearly, the space we have to work with is not near as large as what’s in this photo. However, the slick feel of the kitchen along with the grey and white colour combination are the qualities we hope to transfer over to McKenzie Lake.

Starting a new project is always exciting for us. We believe to do well requires understanding and knowledge of the community we are working in. The first project we have for 2018 is in McKenzie Lake, a suburban neighborhood in southeast Calgary. Before we provide updates on our McKenzie Lake project, we wanted to provide some background information on the community.

History

McKenzie Lake was not always a community with a lake. In fact, the original community was called McKenzie in 1984. As Calgary grew in the 1990s, the city was inspired by the success of Lake Bonavista. As the neighboring community to McKenzie, Lake Bonavista had a lake at the heart of its community, making it attractive to live there. With this knowledge, Calgary built a lake for the community of McKenzie, changing its name to McKenzie Lake. Following this expansion, the neighborhood became much more charming.

Activities

McKenzie Lake has grown into an active area that values the ability to be connected. The McKenzie Lake Community Association (MLCA) encourages homeowners to become members and work together to keep the community at its greatest potential. The MLCA offers everything from before and after school care to yoga and basketball classes. A second organization, McKenzie Lake Residents Association (MLRA), also tries to improve the community by giving Pilates, Zumba and sport-ball programs. To keep the community connected, the MLRA hosts safe and fun events, such as the Father’s Day Fishing Derby and their Family Fun Day.

Culture

Most buildings in the McKenzie Lake community are single-family homes. The community aims to provide activities for its residents, so it’s no surprise that McKenzie Lake is the spot for raising a family. With its strong effort to build a sense of community, McKenzie Lake has also become a popular spot for immigrants to live. Priding itself on being a welcoming community, it makes it easy for new families to settle in. However, there isn’t a high turnover rate for houses in McKenzie Lake. Those that move there tends to stay there. It is a family community, one that brings connection and security to those that live there.